At 12:41 5/06/02 -0400, you wrote:
>From:    Jay L Snyder <Jay.L.Snyder@USA.DUPONT.COM>
>Subject: Re: Planning against on-road glitches
>
>All the passenger Vanagons that had "factory AC" that came in on the East
>Coast (Port of Wilmington, DE) were all installed at the Port of
>Wilmington.  This is what my local dealer told me.  When I bought my '86
>GL, it did not have AC.  The dealer said they would install it for
>something like $2000.  Needless to say, we didn't have it installed.  This
>probably explains why they all leak and the ceiling ducts fall off, and may
>explain the SAE fasteners.  When I bought my '85 Westy with AC, I was
>hoping it was installed at the factory.  Anyone know for sure?

Jay,

The only WBX I've ever seen with genuine factory A/C was a TriStar D/C.

I can't say for sure what happened in the US as I'm on the other side of
the planet but here in Oz,as appears to be the case in the US,A/C was
fitted by a third party locally,often arranged thru the dealer.
Cost was around the $2400Aus (approx $1400US) at the time WBXs were sold new.
I know this was done in our case to help keep import duties down by
importing only bare bones vans in most cases.Dunno about Carats however...
they may have come std with A/C...on others it was always an option.
A/C prolly isn't considered as essential in the fatherland...

Locally installed A/C here sometimes suffered from an A/C belt pulley
working loose and spinning around in a most unwelcome manner.
The installers usied a bolt that was just a tad too long and bottomed out
before the additionally installed pulley was really tight enough.
Worked Ok at first but eventually this problem reared it's ugly head...

FYI,YMMV,etc etc

Steve O
Blue Mountains NSW Australia
'92 Transporter WBX Kombi
'76 Transporter Double Cab
'68 Beetle
'00 Transporter 5Cyl Double Cab